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Florida member meet up


jcbshark

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       Today I was fortunate to get the opportunity to hunt with a group of members on the Peace river in a stretch I've not been to yet. I personally didn't find the holy grail but did get to see some pretty nice pieces found. I would like to thank all the folks who came out today including Chris( Search4), John(Sacha), Ken and Tammy( Digit), Paul( Cam28), Kyle( Addicted2fossils), Cris (Cris) ,Grimlock (Dan) and his son Wolfie,  Sir Tommy the toad (Jeremy) and his family and Calvin Jenkins (Kevin) My phone was close to dead by the time we arrived because I had to use my gps on it to get there and thus only have a handful of pics to share but it was great to get together with these folks for a hunt in our great state:) included is a pic of my better finds including a nice posterior Meg, hemis and a horse tooth. Please feel free to add some pics to this. Also, thank you John for putting us on some good hunting grounds for this trip:meg:

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Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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Lastly. a pic of Chris doing a cannon ball off a palm tree into the river:D Good luck out there!

Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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Kevin sent me a pic of his finds to share and in my opinion had the find of the day wrapped up..... within 10 minutes at the first stop he popped out a dire wolf jaw with a few teeth still in it! Congrats on an excellent find!!!:fistbump:

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Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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Great report! And great finds! Love the pics. Congratulations on a good hunt!

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I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie.

 

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1 hour ago, jcbshark said:

Kevin sent me a pic of his finds to share and in my opinion had the find of the day wrapped up..... within 10 minutes at the first stop he popped out a dire wolf jaw with a few teeth still in it! Congrats on an excellent find!!!:fistbump:

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Yep, he should have just packed up and gone home in finding that. Cool stuff kids!

 

 

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Big Thanks to Jeff, Sasha, Digits for making this happen.  It was nice to meet & hunt with fellow TFF'ers.  Only my third time hunting on the Peace and I was hoping for something Mastodon but I'm happy with this jaw.

 

Calvin

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Seems like it was a very successful hunt! Well done!

Max Derème

 

"I feel an echo of the lightning each time I find a fossil. [...] That is why I am a hunter: to feel that bolt of lightning every day."

   - Mary Anning >< Remarkable Creatures, Tracy Chevalier

 

Instagram: @world_of_fossils

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This was my take for the day. One very nice little meg (nearest the quarter) was the best of show. Thanks Jeff for setting this up. It was worth it just to see Kyle's log.

 

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Happy Easter everyone! Enjoyed the report .... Great pics and finds !   Jill

' Keep calm and carry on fossiling '

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Great fun and I would like to thank Jeff for putting together another successful group hunt and to Dan for letting me squeeze in on his canoe. Found the mammoth tooth chunk early on (my first after a few years of digging) & eventually some shark teeth. Only felt the large hastalis was dumb luck. Several quality fossils dug up yesterday from most to all of us

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Looks like a grerat day Jeff. You Florida guys have some great places to hunt. Here, we are waiting for the rivers to go down, they never really did last summer.

Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt
behind the trailer, my desert
Them red clay piles are heaven on earth
I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt

Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers

 

image.png.0c956e87cee523facebb6947cb34e842.png May 2016  MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png.a47e14d65deb3f8b242019b3a81d8160.png.b42a25e3438348310ba19ce6852f50c1.png May 2012 IPFOTM5.png.fb4f2a268e315c58c5980ed865b39e1f.png.1721b8912c45105152ac70b0ae8303c3.png.2b6263683ee32421d97e7fa481bd418a.pngAug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 VFOTM.png.f1b09c78bf88298b009b0da14ef44cf0.png.af5065d0585e85f4accd8b291bf0cc2e.png.72a83362710033c9bdc8510be7454b66.png.9171036128e7f95de57b6a0f03c491da.png Oct 2022

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Wow! Y'all sure had a great trip and finds. Thanks so much for sharing.

 

Libby

Process of identification "mistakes create wisdom".

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That's a nice meg John and looks like we found the same set of horse teeth.  I can't decide which find was more exciting seeing Kevin's wolf jaw,  or Kyle's 30lb log.  Hope he puts some photos and official weight of that thing.  I tried everything to get it from him but he wouldn't budge. I didn't come away with very either,  but I did get to cannon ball off a dead palm tree before it broke! Really good seeing everyone and meeting some new folks.  Thank you all for getting together for this. 

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It was a great weekend to be out on the Peace River. I made a two-day trip of it since I've been busy this fossil hunting season and haven't managed to get out on the Peace since December of last year. I had relatives down visiting Florida from the northern latitudes (Minnesota) and we took them out on the previous day (Friday) on the more commonly traversed section of the Peace from Brownville to Arcadia. With a steady diet of ibuprofen we were able to mobilize for a second day of paddling, shoveling and sifting. It was great to get out on the river again with some Florida TFF members who we've hunted with before but haven't had the opportunity recently. We were happy to see Jeff (@jcbshark), Chris (@Search4), Paul (@Cam28), and Dan and his son Wolfie (@Grimlock) again. I've been able to go out hunting with John (@Sacha) a few times over the past couple of years but Tammy hasn't been out with John since we collected silificied fossil corals in the Withlacoochee back in August, 2014. It was also great to meet for the first time some new TFF members. We were happy to finally meet Jeremy (@Sir.tommy.the.toad) and his family--the kids did really well and lasted the better part of the day digging and sifting the gravel for shark teeth. We also met Kevin (@Calvin Jenkins) who is from southwestern Florida though we haven't had the chance to meet till now. It was a real honor to have TFF founder @Cris and his hunting partner Kyle @addicted2fossils join us on this trip from north-central Florida. Here's another view of the group from a slightly different angle. I didn't have the camera out much as I didn't really have any photo-worthy finds to document out on the river but I did at least snap a few photos to help remember the day.

 

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Tammy and I enjoyed the social aspects of the group hunt and though we didn't find much more than a lot of smaller teeth we enjoyed sharing the day with a bunch of like-minded folk. Tammy wanted to save the broke shark teeth that might otherwise go back into the river to fill a jar with for a friend. As you can see the river did contain a generous share of shark teeth in addition to the prizes pictured above from others.

 

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We did find a few other things besides a plate of shark chompers. Horse teeth seemed to be in relative short supply in this section of the river. Chris pulled out a pair of upper Equus teeth (one long rooted and one short and stubby). We didn't find a long specimen that day but we did match Chris by finding a well-worn short one that was nearing the end of its service. You can see that this one is  not broken but the occlusal surface was wearing down to within a short distance of the root end.

 

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The other mammal tooth (fragment) that we did pull from the river was a really nice example of the occlusal surface of a mastodon. The enamel is nice and brightly colored on this on and you can see the flat chewing surface--well, part of it anyway. These teeth seem to be quite fragile and I've (so far) only found small fragments of this size or smaller. It's a nice specimen and will do for now (till I get my first complete tooth :)). We also found what appears to be a section of an elongated jawbone. At first I thought it might be from the Long-beaked Dolphin but upon closer inspection I'm now wondering if this might instead be sawfish? Mystery fossils always provide an exercise for learning.

 

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We did find one other unusual (for us) object. It appears to also be a piece of a jaw (maxilla/mandible?) possibly from a crocodilian given the close (and irregular) spacing of what appear to be tooth sockets (alveola). It took a bit of time to pry out all of the pebbles and sand that had gotten wedged into the sockets. Here's what it looks like:

 

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One of the more interesting pieces was this shamer of a tiny meg tooth still (or what's left of it) attached to the matrix. Sadly, this tooth has likely been broken for some time as no matching half was ever found.

 

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The last oddball mystery is this piece. At first it had the color and shading of a piece of phosphate matrix but it was too symmetrical and caught my eye in the sifting screen. The shape initially triggered the vertebrae pattern matching search image but it seems too flat and would be unlike any vert I'm aware of currently. I'm wondering if this might be some sort of skull element (possibly fish)? Any thoughts?

 

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As I mentioned before we were also out on the river the previous day (Friday). We had the pleasure of introducing my cousin Alison and her husband Paul to the unusual activity of pulling fossils from the Peace River. I'll give them credit for getting back into the river after we saw a 9-10 foot long gator hauled up along one of the banks between our first and second stops. They took home the bulk of the fossils that we found together and the only things I saved for myself was a nice fish vert (I'm assuming shark).

 

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The other two pieces were quite unexpected finds in a section of the river which I stop at because of its very large chunky gravel. This spot has previously relinquished several chunks of mammoth tooth, scores of whale ear bones, and a nice whale tooth in the past (and quizzically a gold wedding ring and tie tack). This time I found a crocodilian osteoderm much larger than any that I've found previously.

 

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That surreal experience was repeated less than an hour later when I was doubly surprised to see another appear in the screen of nearly the same size.

 

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The second one seems not to be as mineralized as the first since it lost a chip along one edge. This one is going to go for a dip in a consolidant before it disintegrates any further.

 

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Though it really stands no chance of winning a FOTM contest, I'm quite happy with this monster osteoderm and I'll probably enter it there anyway. The FOTM contest should be a gallery of impressive finds from each month--not just those items with a very strong chance of winning. I'm happy to get this piece a little more exposure on the forum as it was my trip-maker from this weekends hunts.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Cam28 said:

Great fun and I would like to thank Jeff for putting together another successful group hunt and to Dan for letting me squeeze in on his canoe. Found the mammoth tooth chunk early on (my first after a few years of digging) & eventually some shark teeth. Only felt the large hastalis was dumb luck. Several quality fossils dug up yesterday from most to all of us

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I got lucky found my first after only one yearIMG_0884.thumb.JPG.fd18631aedcebd576e331dbcf005e5d8.JPG 

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I had a great time meeting all of you guys and getting the chance to hunt with you. Thanks to everybody who organized this and came out to do some hunting. :) 

Here's some of my finds from the trip. Most of the horse teeth were from the day before the group trip when we hit a different section of the Peace River. I found a nice tapir molar pictured below with incredible colors for the location. I'm partial to mammal fossils, so that was probably my favorite find.

I'm looking forward to hunting with many of you again in the future. Hanging out with so many like minded, equally obsessed fossil hunters was a blast. We need to do this sort of thing more often.

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